Darien, Connecticut is a quaint little town that you could easily drive past on I-95 without noticing. And while it seems like a quiet place where nothing notable happens … every siren that goes off in the middle of the night disturbing the peaceful, tree-lined streets tells a different story. Every first responder in the town’s three fire departments and emergency medical services is a volunteer. All medical emergencies, from a fiery motor vehicle rollover on I-95 to a woman going into labor at home, brings the Post 53 ambulances wailing down the streets. And the EMTs who will treat...

Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, the terrorist responsible for last Thursday’s massive terror attack in Nice, France, was “one of the soldiers of ISIS”, Islamic State sources claimed on Saturday. The attack, carried out during Bastille Day celebrations in the southern French city, left 84 dead – excluding the terrorist, who was shot dead by police – and more than 200 wounded. A Tunisian-born French citizen, Bouhlel had a history of serious mental and emotional problems and was well-known to local police. Bernard Cazeneuve, France’s Interior Minister, said Bouhlel “appears to have become radicalized very quickly”, noting that he began attending the...

Abortion is unique because pregnancy is. The fact that an unborn baby resides entirely inside the body of another human being with rights of her own makes mincemeat of our whole approach to justice, which is based on individual rights, balanced against the rights of others and the claims of the common good. Yes, the baby has the right to life, but the mother has the right to control her body, too, so how can we disentangle the claims of two people who literally inhabit the same space, eat the same food, and are intimately related? To what else...

The head of the agency that oversees President Barack Obamaâ€™s health-care legislation suggested it should not be held responsible for the 12 Obamacare health insurance co-ops that closed their doors to customers last year, according to prepared testimony he is scheduled to deliver today before the Senate Finance Committee. Andy Slavitt, acting administrator for Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), was not apologetic in his testimony and accepted no personal responsibility for the co-op failures in 15 states, according to an advance copy of his testimony obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation. The closures sent millions of Americans...

If The Big Short, Adam McKayâ€™s adaptation of Michael Lewisâ€™s book about the 2008 financial crisis and the subject of last monthâ€™s Vulture cover story, got you all worked up over the holidays, youâ€™re probably wondering what Michael Burry, the economic soothsayer portrayed by Christian Bale whoâ€™s always just a few steps ahead of everyone else, is up to these days. In an email, which readers of the book will recognize as his preferred method of communication, the real-life head of Scion Asset Management answered some of our panicked questions about the state of the financial system, his ominous-sounding water...

"....The current effort to demonize Planned Parenthood feels different. This is, literally, a manufactured issue, cobbled together from doctored videotapes and overheated accusations. The organization's activities have been so mischaracterized, and the practice of providing fetal tissue so overblown and so manipulated by lawmakers and politicians, that blame for the ensuing violence falls more heavily on them. This argument, I concede, rests on a potentially slippery and subjective slope. Holding advocates responsible for such unintended consequences risks dampening speech. Second, conservatives have blamed Black Lives Matter protesters for inspiring the killing of police officers; what makes my critique fair and...

Looking back at the unrest that followed Freddie Gray's death, Baltimore voters see events differently than do voters statewide, a new poll shows.City voters are less likely to sympathize with police, and they are more likely to see joblessness and racism as a cause of April's unrest, according to a poll of likely voters conducted for The Baltimore Sun and the University of Baltimore.Those living outside the city are more likely to blame "a lack of personal responsibility among residents" for the city's ills.The divided opinions were most pronounced when respondents were asked for their opinions of how Baltimore State's...

Following ISIS's November 13, 2015 terror attack in Paris, the executive editor of the Iraqi daily Al-Mada, 'Adnan Hussein, published a harsh article titled "This Is Our Terror, We Are Responsible," in which he stated that all Muslims, Sunnis and Shi'ite, bear direct responsibility for the terror that is sweeping the world. He said that the curricula, the media and the mosques in the Muslim world constitute a platform for inculcating a barbaric kind of Islam that condones beheadings and bloodshed, whereas the voice of the other kind of Islam, which preaches peace and compassion, is barely heard. This religious...

The Obama administration's policy toward Syria and its more than four-year civil war is rapidly becoming a black mark on the president's legacy. And a scathing new report by Peter Baker of The New York Times details the mind-boggling decision by the White House to refuse to accept any responsibility. The blame for the failed US effort to train Syrian rebels to fight ISIS "should be pointed not at Mr. Obama but at those who pressed him to attempt training Syrian rebels in the first place," administration officials told Baker. There are only "four or five" US-trained rebels left fighting...

"The difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans believe people are fundamentally bad, while Democrats see people as fundamentally good." With that philosophical premise, former Oklahoma Rep. J.C. Watts (R) isolated the differences between members of the two political parties in the clearest manner I've ever heard, and the implications of his statement are considerable, as it explains many Republican policies for at least a generation. Watts made the remarks in Pella, Iowa, while stumping for Sen. Rand Paul's (R-Ky.) presidential bid prior to the Iowa caucuses. Watts drew the nation's attention first as the quarterback who led the...

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said her agency is "accepting full responsibility" for a contractor that accidentally spilled millions of gallons of polluted water last week into western Colorado's Animas River, where cleanup efforts are ongoing as federal officials seek to maintain contamination. The Aug. 5 spill occurred when an agency contractor operating heavy machinery punctured a barrier holding back water containing mining tailings at the Gold King Mine near Silverton, Colo. Three million gallons of water polluted with heavy metals poured into the river and turned it orange, and the tainted water spread into New Mexico and Utah....

Left’s Bystander Nation. Let the authorities and experts handle it, while you mind your own business. Individual responsibility is something for cowboys from Oklahoma For all intents and purposes the Savopoulos family were good, civic–minded residents of Washington, DC. Savvas, and his wife Amy, were active in charitable causes and contributed $51,800 to both Republican and Democrat candidates since 2006. The Daily Mail reports that even though Savopoulos was very wealthy he didn’t surround himself with bodyguards or other security and the family didn’t hesitate to open the door when someone knocked. When you live near Vice President Joe “Shotgun”...

When a society abandons these virtues, the people become corrupt, and unwilling to abide by the rule of law. A viciousness blankets the people, which leads to violence and lawlessness Benjamin Franklin emphasized that without virtue, free societies could not properly function. He said, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” With freedom comes responsibility. The responsible society is one that is virtuous. A man with virtue is a man that possesses “sacred honor.” It is for the sake of a free society that men must deny...

Hours after residents of Baltimore, Maryland, set the city aflame, President Barack Obama took to the Rose Garden to explain in professorial style just why America, under his administration, keeps watching young black men loot buildings and attack police officers. "We have seen too many instances of what appears to be police officers interacting with individuals -- primarily African-American, often poor -- in ways that have raised troubling questions. And it comes up, it seems like, once a week now, or once every couple weeks," Obama said, proclaiming that police brutality against blacks amounted to a "slow-rolling crisis." He added,...

Wow, so Bob Woodward’s new book is making a lot of headlines to today and why shouldn’t it? It’s an amazing view into the White House and well, frankly scared the bejeesus out of me just knowing that this joker is in charge of our country and military. Where to begin? It starts with the front page story from the Washington Post which talks about Bob Woodward’s new book, Obama’s Wars. The book quite literally is a stark reality check for the American people on who their Commander-in-Chief is and how he thinks. The first bombshell that people are talking...

An older generation complaining that an emerging one will be the death of civilization as we know it is a cliche and constant as the North Star. However, based on some rather troubling data regarding today’s millennials, it could turn out to be true this time. In his first inaugural address as governor of California 47 years ago, Ronald Reagan warned us that “freedom is a fragile thing, and is never more than one generation away from extinction.” He also reminded us that freedom “is not ours by inheritance but must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation,...

BREAKING: TALIBAN CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY FOR MURDER OF THREE AMERICANS AT KABUL AIRPORT On Wednesday White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz argued that the Taliban is not a terrorist group, but instead an “armed insurgency.” On Thursday White House Spokesman Josh Earnest doubled-down on the idiocy. Earnest told reporters: “They have a different classification. They have a classification that does allow us to place financial concessions against them that have succeeded in limiting their capability. They’ve been effective. And that is different than an organization like Al-Qaeda that has much broader global aspiration to carry out acts of violence and...

(Photo: CNS) The III Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops met for several weeks in October 2014 and issued the document, â€śPastoral Challenges to the Family in the Context of Evangelization.â€ť There has been much commentary about the ill-conceived interim report,Â Relatio post Disceptationem, which implied that homosexuality had inherent positive gifts and that divorced and remarried people who were in a state of perpetual adultery could somehow be accommodated to be able to receive communion. The scandalous nature of these ill-conceived paragraphs created great public confusion. Thankfully, in the final Relatio Synodi, the scandalous language was removed....

Gov. Jerry Brown signed historic groundwater legislation Tuesday, imposing new rules in the Golden State that could limit how much water commercial and residential users are allowed to pump from underground aquifers — a move decades in the works, spurred this year by California’s drought. The new laws, which take effect in January, will require local government officials to ensure use of groundwater basins is sustainable, protecting underground reserves and averting other environmental damage. The regulations could have a ripple effect on thousands of farmers and ranchers across the North Coast.

<p>The ongoing crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border is a “shared responsibility,” President Obama said Friday after meeting with the presidents of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala at the White House on Friday.</p>

The abominable callousness demonstrated at the Department of Veterans Affairs is deadly serious, and warrants more than an all-too-familiar claim of “responsibility” from Eric Shinseki: ... Of course, Shinskei is just echoing his boss and other members of the administration: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s declaration that she takes responsibility for the failure to secure our facilities and personnel in Libya — with no word on any actual consequence of this failure — is the most recent example. But the approach began from the very start of this administration. ... Discussing the national debt in Virginia on Aug. 6, 2009,...

Journalist Melissa Kite said men who don't want children are selfish Peter Lloyd says men know babies will always be 'hers', not 'theirs' Yesterday, journalist Melissa Kite became the latest woman to publicly trash men in a sexist, undeserving rant - this time, by saying those exercising a human right not to become fathers were 'selfish'.

Obituary Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as: * Knowing when to come in out of the rain; * Why the early bird gets the worm* Life isn't always fair and maybe it was my fault. Common Sense lived by a simple, sound financial policy and a good reliable strategy toward life. * Don't...

On Friday, as I noted on Saturday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told public radio's Susan Arbetter that "extreme conservatives" – that is, people who are pro-life, understand the clear meaning of the Second Amendment, or wish to keep marriage as it has traditionally been defined – "have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are." Note well that Cuomo's remarks are still not news at the Associated Press's national site. On Sunday, Cuomo's people sent and released an "open letter" containing a very inaccurate transcription of the original interview accusing the New...

"The New York State Legislature needs to Raise the Age of criminal responsibility, and they need to do it this year," demands the subheadline on MSNBC.com's landing page this afternoon for a story headlined, "Stop charging kids as adults." The column, co-authored by former NAACP president Ben Jealous and actress Rosario Dawson, promotes a push by the Citizens Committee for Children of New York [CCCNY] to change Empire State law so that minors aged 16 years old cannot be charged as adults. Jealous and Dawson don't disclose to what age they believe the age of criminal responsibility should be raised,...

There are some things in this life that are more important than others. Through my 51 years on this earth, I have learned that personal responsibility is one of those things. If we refuse to take responsibility for our actions, we are apt to go through this life with an attitude of entitlement. If we perform an action, knowing full well it is wrong, we will then expect someone else to take the blame, to bail us out, and to fix the problem. I have seen this first hand. The automotive shop I work at installs a device to prevent...

It's odd, the places from which I draw inspiration for my writings. I was driving with my wife yesterday, looking for a black powder rifle to buy, and happened to come across a road sign. It is a sign I have seen countless times before, but it struck me for some reason yesterday. It was a warning a few hundred yards before I crossed a bridge, making sure I understood that the bridge may ice in cold weather. I have nothing against such signs and they do serve the purpose to make sure drivers are warned about the possible dangers...

US President Barack Obama has accepted "full responsibility" for ensuring the troubled healthcare website gets fixed. Speaking in Boston, he said he was "not happy" about the glitch-laden project, but made a full-throated defence of the broader 2010 healthcare law. Earlier, his embattled health secretary apologised to the American people over the botched website rollout. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is the largest overhaul of the US healthcare system since the 1960s. Commonly known as Obamacare, it aims to extend health insurance coverage to the estimated 15% of the American population who lack it. But a key element...

Judge Jeanine Pirro hammered the Obama administration tonight over the Obamacare rollout asking “are they liars or just incompetent?” She told the president that it’s time to man up, roll up his sleeves and take responsibility because we’re tired of the blame game. Pirro even highlights that the senior vice president for the company who got the no-bid contract to do the Obamacare website was Michelle Obama’s college classmate, noting that this is really all about the money. But more than that, she said with quite a bit of passion that the American people deserve what they’ve been promised, that...

I am the reason liberals believe their policies and ideas will work in the real world. I am the driven American entrepreneur. Every time an entrepreneur accepts a directive from the government that will harm his chance of earning a profit; every time a roadblock is put up and the entrepreneur finds a way to adapt and keep moving on; every time a conservative curses the policy of the liberal but still keeps running his business and paying taxes... he confirms the liberal policy as a logical reality. Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/10/i_am_the_guilty_man.html

Dutch King: Say goodbye to welfare state AMSTERDAM (AP) — King Willem-Alexander delivered a message to the Dutch people from the government Tuesday in a nationally televised address: the welfare state of the 20th century is gone. In its place a "participation society" is emerging, in which people must take responsibility for their own future and create their own social and financial safety nets, with less help from the national government.

I love it when liberal progressives actually speak their true beliefs for us all to hear. However, you have to probe deeply and get them riled up enough to blow their cool in order to hear their unvarnished agenda. Liberals know that sane people do not agree with their policies or their goals, so they must always cloak them in a shadowy cloud of lies. It's always, "it's about the children!" or "where's your compassion?" with them in order to mask their true goals. Once you get under their skin, you can expose their lies and twisted words as they'll...

If we put ourselves into the shoes of racists who seek to sabotage black upward mobility, we couldn't develop a more effective agenda than that followed by civil rights organizations, black politicians, academics, liberals and the news media. Let's look at it. First, weaken the black family, but don't blame it on individual choices. You have to preach that today's weak black family is a legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and racism. The truth is that black female-headed households were just 18 percent of households in 1950, as opposed to about 68 percent today. In fact, from 1890 to 1940,...

Barron County (Press Release) - On Saturday, June 15, 2013 at 4:33 a.m., the Barron County Sheriff's Department received a report of a semi vs. pedestrian accident on Highway 8 west of Cameron in the Town of Stanley. Upon arrival, it was discovered that a semi driven by Duane E. Nelson, 51, of Almena was traveling east on Highway 8 when he saw a male running east in the west bound lane of Highway 8. Nelson attempted to stop and move over but the running man turned towards the semi and into the path of it. The man, identified as...

I’ve repeatedly explained that Keynesian economics doesn’t work because any money the government spends must first be diverted from the productive sector of the economy, which means either higher taxes or more red ink. So unless one actually thinks that politicians spend money with high levels of effectiveness and efficiency, this certainly suggests that growth will be stronger when the burden of government spending is modest (and if spending is concentrated on “public goods,” which do have a positive “rate of return” for the economy). I’ve also complained (to the point of being a nuisance!) that there are too many...

One of the dumbest things a country can do in a recession is raise taxes. Yet, after pronouncing the end of austerity, Italy's "grand coalition" government, led by Enrico Letta, is going to hike the VAT. Why? It seems they need to hike the VAT to pay for a decrease in property taxes. Recall that Silvio Berlusconi was only willing to take part in Letta's grand coalition on condition property tax hikes were rolled back. Letta agreed to do that, but now Letta says Italy needs revenue hikes to make up for it. Grand Coalition Splintering Curiously, the International Business...

So it comes to this: After all that has been said about Barack Obama, in the end there is very little to say. You are either willing to overlook Barack Obama’s foibles and foolishness; or you aren’t. There is no middle ground. There is no saying for example “Well he’s kind of new in the job,” or “This is an example of one bad apple in his Cabinet,” or “The president didn’t know about it.” Going into his second term, you either knew what we had in Barack Obama or you didn’t. For myself, I’ve never been willing to overlook...

Need some Freeper help developing an idea. It seems that the most powerful person in the Obama Administration is "We Don't Know": We Don't Know who edited the Benghazie Talking Points. We Don't Know who Gave the Stand Down Order We Don't Know who in the IRS targeted Conservative Groups. So in keeping with "Who's on 1st" Please add you suggestions for other activities were conducted by "We Don't Know"

HOUSTON, TX. - If youâ€™ve been to any of the National Rifle Associationâ€™s annual meetings, youâ€™ll understand what I mean when I say the gathering is a true representation of what makes America exceptional. This year, the NRA held its annual meetings and convention in Houston and was attended by more than 85,000 people. Last year it was held in St. Louis and the year before in Pittsburg. Over the past few months, the NRA has seen their membership balloon and just last Friday, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre announced the organization has reached 5 million members. The common...

I feel a tremendous responsibility to write this article though I am a little apprehensive. Thinking about the possibility of rising up against our own government is a frightening thing for many of us. I am not Johnny Rambo and I will be the first to admit that I do not want to die. The reason I feel compelled to write this, however, is simply because I donÂ’t think the average American is equipped with the facts. I feel that a lot of American citizens feel like they have no choice but to surrender their guns if the government comes...

As has been the case since the beginning of Obama's second term, it seems gun control remains in the news. All sorts of things are happening and Obama is on the road again, trying to gin up support for any and all measures to curb our 2nd Amendment rights. No, he isn't calling it that and I am sure he would take an exception to my description of what he is doing, but I believe I am correct in my assessment. In a comment I left at America's Watchtower, where they are discussing the insane proposal from certain liberal Democrats...

In answering this question the following rules of constitutional law are to be followed: Intent of framers and adopters as controlling The fundamental principle of constitutional construction is that effect must be given to the intent of the framers of the organic law and of the people adopting it. This is the polestar in the construction of constitutions, all other principles of construction are only rules or guides to aid in the determination of the intention of the constitutionâ€™s framers.--- numerous citations omitted__ Vol.16 American Jurisprudence, 2d Constitutional law (1992 edition), pages 418-19 Meaning of Language Ordinary meaning, generally Words...

While the present Administration ignores both Washington's wise counsel & his clear understanding of male psychology, President Obama's Secretary of Defense, denies both the role of Congress, the Chivalric Code & all human experience in a bizarre January order for all branches of the Armed Forces to place women in combat units by 2016. Will further eroding a sense of male responsibility serve any constructive purpose, in dealing with any contemporary problem? Will trashing what have always been constructive male roles--the responsibility of young men to defend their society--contribute anything positive toward dealing with the rash of atrocities committed by...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton´s voice cracked today as she was grilled during the long-awaited Senate hearing about the fatal attack on the American consulate in Benghazi on September 11. She grew emotional at one point as she discussed the four American victims of the Benghazi attack, saying the incident is not just about ´policy, it´s personal.´ ´I put my arms around the mothers and fathers, the sisters and brothers, the sons and daughters and the wives left alone to raise their children,´ she said, her voice shaking. ´I stood next to President Obama as the Marines carried those flag-draped

"We must reject the idea that each time a law's broken, society is guilty- rather than the lawbreaker. It's time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions"-Ronald Reagan ________________________________ 'nuff said...

Excuse me while I go off the normal, beaten path of Political Realities. Today's post is so different, I had to create the new category of society to properly define it. It's more than a little safe to make the following statement. The society we live in today is not the society we grew up in. By we, I mean those of us who are middle-aged, possibly 40 and older. Today's society has changed so drastically, it is almost unrecognizable. The most glaring example of that change is the lack of responsibility that is displayed by so many people. No...

The preponderance of Benghazi evidence conclusively shows that Obama is a Coward. As a coward, Obama is unfit to be the Commander in Chief of the US Military. His strategic retreat to Las Vegas, Nevada the day after he authorized that 4 Americans were to be left behind to die, has brought indelible shame to his office, and the Democrat Party.